Methodists Differ On Abortion Churches Speak For Selves

February 01, 1990|by MARTIN PFLIEGER, The Morning Call

Banner-waving United Methodists who participated in the "March for Women's Equality/Women's Lives" in Washington, D.C., this past spring did not represent the United Methodist Church on the issue of abortion, according to a Wescosville church which has protested to state and national church organizations.

But according to the General Board of Global Ministries, there is a misunderstanding about the march and who attended.

Wilson Miller, chairman of the Administrative Council of Bethany United Methodist Church, 1208 Brookside Road, said the church objected to the appearance of the Women's Division Committee on Women's Concerns at the march. It also protested the organizations's involvement in a pro-choice card campaign sponsored by the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.

Both activities and the committee's involvement in them "send an implied message of support from the United Methodist Church as a whole," the Administrative Council of Bethany wrote in a prepared statement.

"The members of Bethany United Methodist Church do not deny the rights of individuals to have and actively support differing convictions. Our objection stems from the fact that actions taken by these church agencies are reported to differ so widely from our own. It would be just as inappropriate for those who are pro-life to claim to represent all Methodists by appearing in a pro-life rally carrying the banner of the United Methodist Church."

But Ellen Kirby, head of the Section of Christian Social Relations of the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries for the United Methodist Church, said the women's committee did not attend the march, though several of its members may have attended on their own.

Kirby said the committee received an invitation to the march, "affirmed the event" but did not attend. The committee meets only twice a year, she said.

The march covered a lot of issues, Kirby said, including the constitutional rights of women. Abortion rights was also covered, she said.

The committee did participate in the pro-choice card campaign, which "reflected our church's position (on abortion) to our best understanding," Kirby said.

As a form of protest, the Administrative Council at Bethany has announced it is withholding $1,615, or 5 percent, of its 1990 apportionment payment to the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of United Methodist Churches. The money will be donated to a local Christian crisis pregnancy center, the council said.

The council is also asking other churches to instruct their lay members to the annual conference to elect pro-life delegates to the 1992 General Conference. Those who support Bethany's position are being urged to make their views known.

Other United Methodist churches, most from Pennsylvania, have called the General Board of Global Ministries to register complaints, Kirby said.

Dale Owens, business administrator and treasurer for the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of United Methodist Churches, said Bethany has the right to withhold its apportionment. He did not know if other local churches had taken similar action.

The United Methodist Church banner local church members saw during media coverage of the spring march may have been carried by another group of people.

According to Robert Lear, senior news director for the United Methodist Church, the Board of Church and Society met in Washington in the spring. When the meeting adjourned, about 15 lay people and clergy from the board went to the march on their own carrying a United Methodist Church banner, Lear said.

"They were acting as individuals, but it was interpreted in some corridors as official action of either the board of the Church and it was neither," said Lear.

Views on abortion vary among individual United Methodist churches and the bodies that govern them. Bethany is staunchly anti-abortion, Miller said.

The General Conference, the top lawmaking body of the United Methodist Church, supports a "modified pro-choice" position, according to Lear.

"When tragic conflicts of life with life justify abortion, then a woman, after she's had appropriate council with her pastor and with medical officials, should have the legal option under proper medical procedures to have an abortion," said Lear, paraphrasing a statement adopted in 1988 by the General Conference.

"We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection," Lear stated.

The Women's Division Committee on Women's Concerns has adopted the same position on abortion.

Lear noted that when a group within the United Methodist Church takes a position on an issue it is speaking only for itself and not the Church.

"Only the General Conference speaks for the Church," said Lear. "It is fair to say that within the denomination there are a number of groups which do not endorse the General Conference stand and are strongly anti-abortion."